Saturday, September 26, 2015

This past week my oldest son received a Lego Junior fire station
set as an unexpected gift from his cousins.
It is his first Lego set and he is totally captivated by it. He has played with it constantly and shows no
sign of tiring of it like he does other toys.
It was a wonderful gift totally in accord with his desires and longing
to be immersed in the world of firefighters.

Not surprisingly, my youngest son is also completely
mesmerized by the set. He relishes the
few opportunities he gets to play with the truck and station on his own without
his brother around. The thing about it
though is that he breaks pieces off everysingletime he touches it! So in
the span of 5 minutes the truck no longer has its ladder, windshield, doors, or
rear seating compartment and the station no longer has its slide, door handle, chair,
windows, antenna, garage, ramps to the garage, upper wall, external hydrant . .
. you get the picture. The gift intended
for his brother is totally in accord with his desires too and he longs to be
immersed in the world of firefighters via this portal. Currently though at his young age, with
imprecise fine motor skills, he cannot help but steadily and predictably
destroy the very thing with which he is enthralled.

I bring it up here because it has struck me as an analogy
for helping to process the SCOTUS ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges.

So what specifically are the contours of the analogy I am
referencing?

An unexpected gift arrives from thoughtful relatives. It is spot on in terms of fulfilling a
longing we have. This is what God our father
has done in giving humanity natural and sacramental marriage. We all long to love and be loved for, “Man
cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for
himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not
encounter love, if he does not experience it and make it his own, if he does
not participate intimately in it.” (Redemptor
hominis #10)

The possibility of remaining exclusively, permanently and
fruitfully bound to a spouse is a longing proper to all human hearts. St. John Paul II calls it the primordial sacrament,
or the sign that actually makes God present in the world from the very dawn of
creation.

Some of humanity is capable of receiving the surprise gift
in an appropriate way that keeps the gift intact. Some of humanity is not. Here’s a kicker though, we all start out not being able to keep the gift intact, but with time, patience and
training (by God) we develop the necessary skills and finesse to interact
appropriately within the confines of the gift.
After the Fall, all of humanity experiences a wound in our most
vulnerable interiority. We desire things
that do not correspond to our longing for love.
We are attracted by lies, counterfeits and knockoffs. Because of this gaping wound everyone needs
to learn how to grow beyond the ultimate poison to marriage which is “hardness
of heart” (Mt 19:8). So the remedy for any of us being able to live out the intricate gift of marriage well
is time, virtue and God’s grace.

This is why, in part, I’m so displeased with the SCOTUS
ruling. It ignores the crescendo of time,
virtue and grace that humanity has been learning to implement when it comes to the
tremendous gift of marriage down from Adam and Eve, through Abraham, David,
Hosea, Moses, Jesus, my ancestors to me.
But actually, I can’t be too harsh on the 5 Justices that ruled so
wrongly late in June because marriage in America has been consistently ruled
against for generations (if we wanted to try, we might pinpoint the first major
turn with the ruling on contraception in Griswold v. Connecticut).

I am disturbed that so many in our culture remain where my
younger son is, constantly destructing and unable to leave an intact structure
for others.

Spelling it out even more in the terms of the analogy, everyone’s proclivities to all sorts of
sexual sins have been breaking pieces off of sacramental marriage (when two
baptized Christians profess vows) and natural marriage (when a baptized
Christian marries a non-Christian, or two non-Christians marry) for so long
that we no longer have a fire station standing in Western culture. We just have a pile of recognizable pieces,
deconstructed and seemingly read for our own designs. But this will not work for man who must
participate intimately in love in order to fully receive himself.

I’m not angry at the “Gay lobby”, they’re just applying the
same logic that our culture has been applying since even before Margaret Sanger was up
to no good at the turn of the century. The
widespread acceptance of no fault divorce means that marriage is not truly
expected to be permanent for many in our culture and the ubiquitous use of
contraception and sterilization have made intimacy between men and women
unfruitful and closed to the possibility of lovingly accepting children from
the first moment of their conception. So
if men and women are not permanently and fruitfully bound together in marriage,
what would be the rational basis in our courts for distinguishing between
marriage and same sex civil unions now erroneously referred to as “marriage” in
our nation?

I’m disheartened when my sons get overwhelmed by the
intricate details of their Lego fire station.
One of them can play well with the gift, the other can only slowly
destroy it. This realization has enabled
me to process my thoughts and emotions in the wake of June 26, 2015. I long for the time when more of us learn our
lessons and grow to be like my older son, playing in accord with our limits—and
therefore are free to love authentically and be loved fully.

What’s helping you process the SCOTUS ruling?

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Though I
must maintain a certain level of confidentiality as a canonist, I can still
make broad observations when it comes to marriage and preparing for marriage.
One area in which I find myself often surprised is the various reasons people
decide to enter into marriage and with whom they decide to do it. Too often
there is too little actual discernment and too much fantasy involved in the
decision. If I may be so bold, I
present here some advice about the discernment of marriage from a canonist.

The most
common ground for annulment is a lack of discretionary judgment (LDJ). Simply
put, LDJ means that something was so overwhelming and essential that it
hindered the mind to make a proper judgment, which affects the discernment of
marriage. In our RomCom culture, it is not hard to find this ground in most
cases considering how little discernment there is for marriage.

Love is a
virtue. It is not something one “falls into.” Like any virtue, love requires
active participation of the person in his striving toward excellence. Love does
not make marriage, only consent makes a marriage; in fact, tribunals won’t look
explicitly at love to judicate the validity of marriage.

Marriage is
a vocation (nb: this does not
preclude love, but in fact makes space for love’s true depth). It takes at
least nine years of discernment to be a priest. Yet, some people get married
over the weekend. There is wisdom in discerning your vocation. Now marriage is
not the same vocation as the religious life, but, as individuals, we should
take any vocation seriously. Marriage is not a simple matter of choice, but
involves God in the decision making process. Therefore, courtship is
discernment because it has one goal, to marry or not marry. Neither is a good
or bad answer because either answer helps in discerning one’s vocation.

Discernment
is key to marriage. The couple must realistically evaluate their boyfriend or
girlfriend with God’s help. In order for the relationship to work, there must
be prayer. The couples should understand each other’s spiritual life and
models. Faith is key to trust and love.

One thing
RomCom culture neglects to portray is that the discerning person should look at
the potential spouse’s family. When the tribunal reviews a case for a ground,
we will often ask about families and upbringings. The family is very important.
Often as the couple matures in the marriage, they will begin to imitate their
parents because the parents were of course each spouse’s first model of
marriage. Therefore, it is wise to see how their parents interact with each
other and to notice the relationship between the parent and the future spouse.

If you are a
woman, see how your potential husband talks about his father because his father
is often his first model of masculinity for him. Many of his characteristics
and principles will be formed from the pattern of his father. If his father
provided a good formation to the son, the son will usually behave accordingly.
This system will provide certain unbreakable principles that will include his
wife and the treatment of her. Also, remember that the reverse can also be
true: the sins of the father are the sins of the son.

Moments of anger
or stress tend to reveal something about a man’s honor system. Every man has a
level of aggression in him. As he grows, he learns to control and channel it.
When he is angry or stressed, at times, he could become aggressive. How he
responds to those triggers, might save the discerning woman’s life. If the
aggression turns into violence, this is a red flag. Other red flags include lying,
malice, or any other forms of deceit., these are also red flags. If there is
any aggressive sexual advancements during these times, the woman should be
concerned. These red flags should be discerned because they may be mild during
the courtship; once the marriage matures and there are children, they will
escalate. This is a tale I have read far too often.

If you are a
man, see how your potential spouse understands beauty in broad sense. Her sense
of beauty is instilled in her by both her parents. Her father provides an
outward understanding, while her mother will provide an inward definition.
Discern the source of that beauty. Is it from God, the woman herself, or from
something material? Does her understanding of beauty include motherhood and
wifehood? Try to discern the source of her beauty because it will save the
husband from struggles further in the marriage. Did she marry you for you or in
order to fulfill a fantasy? Or are you just a stepping stone to something
better?

Other simple
things I have noticed from reading cases: try to discern any abuses or trauma
in the other person’s life and how it was handled. Such things determine the person's character
and behavior. Depending on his response to and handling of the abuse or trauma,
it may determine his actions in other stressful situations, like his or her
child being hurt. Understand this simple truth: if he or she hits you once, he
or she feels a right to abuse and it will manifest at some point again in the
marriage.

Try and determine how forgiveness and closure has played in
healing from any abuse or trauma. The way they have forgiven the transgression,
may reveal the manner they respond to events in the marriage. I have noticed
three levels of forgiveness: God, the other person, and the self; the self
being the hardest to forgive and to discern. Some have forgiven the other
person and God for what happened and they say they are fine. But they may have
not completely forgiven themselves for being a victim, so they hide it. While
the courtship may be fine, marriage always brings up what is hidden. If it is
unresolved abuse, remember your vows “in good times and bad.”

Don’t make
excuses for the other person; rather seriously develop an insight into him or
her. Look at the Church's teachings on marriage and discern if the other person
can fulfil them. When the discernment is complete and your judgment has
determined this person to a potential spouse, I would recommend going to prayer
and see if God agrees.

This may all sound a bit harsh, and that comes from my
experience: what I do can be harsh, but also enriching. I write so that couples
can see the bad with the good. There is great hope for love in marriage, more
so than in any stalled courtship, but marriage makes the spouses naked before
each other. There is nothing hidden or will be hidden in time. Each spouse loves
the other, including all the other person’s flaws. Some flaws can be seen in
the present, but many may not be revealed until after the marriage, often after
having children. The virtue of love, which is an action, can take all the
ugliness with the beauty, and saying “I do” allows this to happen. The form of
marriage aids the spouses in their pursuit of holiness.

Have a question you’d like answered about canonical law? You
can email it directly to askacanonlawyer[at]gmail.com

Thursday, July 2, 2015

With
regard to SCOTUS; with regard to Vanity
Fair; with regard to the co-opting of language, concepts, and symbols; with
regard to the sloganeering; with regard to the vitriol; with regard to the
violence; with regard to being labeled a bigot; with regard to the seemingly
all-pervasive truth claims; with regard to the oppressive nature of such truth
claims; with regard to the question of what is to be done: I recall that there
is in fact truth, that truth is a person who actually exists, and that he will
set me free (John 8:32).

And then
I remember what I try always to remind my students of: first, that we live in a
broken culture, which has a broken vision of the human person. This vision
tells us that we are androgynous; that we are monads; that we are not creatures;
that we should not, if we don’t want to, really have to depend on anything or
anyone; that love is merely a feeling; that nothing beyond what we want or feel
today matters. But that in fact we are creatures; that we were created male and
female (Gen 1:27); that our needfulness is not a curse but a gift; that love
does in fact constitute our being; that that same love has also already been
given and will redeem everything—every last broken thing—from the inside out.

Second, I tell my students that we are affected by the broken culture in which
we live. Because we are not in fact isolated monads, the vision of the human
person by which we are surrounded does
matter. That, in a way, this anthropological and theological vision is
incarnated in us. And thus, it is not the nature of the Church to isolate
herself, or to run away from the world, no matter how much the world hates her.
She exists, along with Christ, her head and bridegroom, to save the world. She
safeguards the truth about the human person and all of creation within herself,
and we, members of the body, must live these truths incarnately, renewing the
culture from within, losing our blood, if necessary.

And then
I know that it is only from this viewpoint that we can begin to think about and
approach these issues. Because it is, after all, the viewpoint of Christ on the
Cross.

Sunday, June 28, 2015

We continue here our explorations into St. John Paul II’s
series of Wednesday Catecheses, which eventually became known as Man
and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body (TOB, for short). To
see other posts on this topic, click here.

I will admit upfront that original nakedness, the third of
the original experiences that John Paul II explains in the TOB, has always been
the least clear to me: we have seen man alone, in front of God and the rest of
the world, understanding both his created nature and his unique place in
creation; and we have seen Adam and Eve together, understanding that man does
not live or know himself in isolation, that his finitude and bodiliness are in
fact good. What more does original nakedness “bring to the table,” so to speak?

Let’s first recall the context of original nakedness: the
three original experiences are a meditation by the saint on the subjective
experience of Adam and Eve in the state of original innocence. The experiences
are not step-wise or successive, but in fact a circumencession: all three are
present in the beginning in some sense, albeit in more or less explicit ways at
different points. Original nakedness is intrinsically related to original solitude
and original unity
insofar as it is part of the human experience,
and insofar as it too, like the other experiences opens up another dimension of
what it means to be imago dei.

Which dimension is that? Our first clue is the word John
Paul II uses to name this experience: nakedness brings the body almost
immediately to mind and thus should be a clue that it may have something to do
with the immanent experience of man as embodied. Once again, we are being
reminded that the body is not something “other” than myself, that in fact I am my body, and my lived experience
occurs, so to speak, nowhere else. Original nakedness, then, reminds us of a
certain transparency the human being should properly have (even if it has been
now distorted) to himself, to others, and to the world.

This does not however mean that in original nakedness we’re
laid completely bare to one another, such that there could be no interiority in
either Adam or Eve that the other did not see. This would be a violation of
man’s integrity, and a violation of his freedom: though there is a proper
transparency in original innocence, there is also a proper boundary with the
other, such that Adam and Eve can choose to reveal themselves to each other in
time. We must not mistake the exteriorization of things for original nakedness;
rather it seems to me that original nakedness is another way to look at what
intimacy really means.

Though intimacy has become a bit of an epithet for sex or
other physical closeness, I think we all know that one can be physically close
to someone and not be truly intimate. That’s because intimacy is in fact first
a kind of knowing. It is a knowing that sees the other person not just for his
body—or for any one-dimensional aspect—but rather sees him as a whole, in all
of his humanity—that is to say, as a subjective/objective whole.
Intimacy is also, as we know, something that takes time. This temporal aspect
is, it seems to me, intrinsic to intimacy because to see and treat someone
holistically means to acknowledge that there is an interiority about him that I
cannot know unless he reveals it to me himself. Human beings are not machines
whose parts can be separated and (literally) objectified—we are persons whose
experience is expressed in and through the body in modes we can choose to
share.

The intimacy that the experience of original nakedness is,
then, helps us understand what knowledge truly is—it is not a running list of
facts and figures, but the space in which we can let someone reveal himself and
in which we can reveal ourselves. Obviously the bodily aspect of intimacy has a
great deal to do with this, but physical intimacy is not the entire telos of
original nakedness, and we risk abridging John Paul II’s vision if we cut it
off at that point. We must remember that the original experiences, and the Theology of the Body itself is not
simply about the relationship (conjugal or otherwise) between male and female,
but about man in the world as incarnated imago
dei.

Original nakedness is then a way of knowing and being known
as God knows and is known. It is God who respects the wholeness of creature so
much that he allows him the freedom to say yes to God or not. And it is God who
reveals himself to his creature gently and appropriately, such that his
creature can come to know him—in time—intimately.
If God gives the gift of identity in original solitude and community in
original unity, then he gives the gift of his vision and care for his creation
in original nakedness.

Friday, June 19, 2015

When I
was a junior in high school I began the application process for a U.S. Marine
Corps NROTC scholarship. Along the way I
encountered a recruiter for enlistment with the Marines. His basic selling point was, why go through
your first exposure to military training while you’re also becoming accustomed
to undergraduate studies? Join the
Marines as an enlisted man and then if you get accepted to the NROTC program
you’ll be a step up on everyone. The
unmentioned part of the plan though was that if I didn’t get accepted to NROTC
then I’d be a Marine, not a college student, for at least four years and he’d
be one step closer to his monthly quota of recruits. He summarized his sales pitch to me by posing
the question, “do you want to have to learn to walk and chew gum all at the
same time?” I must confess, at the time
it was a persuasive rhetorical question because of my eagerness to do “tough
guy” stuff as soon as possible. Looking
back on the whole brief exchange (my application did not make it past the first
wave of scrutiny) I periodically and whimsically call to mind that rather
bizarre phrase, “learning to walk and chew gum at the same time”.

I bring it up here because of two
very much non-trivial tasks in which all baptized Christians are called to
participate, but most of us don’t have a real good grasp of either of them on
their own, and certainly not when paired up!
The two tasks: forming intentional disciples from people within our
sphere of influence (walking), and living fully our own Christian state of life
(chewing gum). Expecting that most
Christians fulfill these responsibilities currently (or even know how to begin
them) is like expecting that Marine boot camp wouldn’t be a culture shock to a
pampered city boy.

If you
haven’t had a chance to read Sherry Weddell’s Forming Intentional Disciples and Becoming a Parish of Intentional Disciples
yet, I highly recommend them. The books
equip and motivate the reader to fruitfully respond to the Gospel imperative to
share freely what we have freely received (Mt 10:8). For if we don’t do this, our own faith will
atrophy and our friendship with the Lord and our neighbor will deteriorate,
perhaps even to the point where we don’t believe it’s possible to have a loving
relationship with God himself or care about the condition of our neighbor’s
body and soul. As St. Vincent de Paul wrote,
“It is not enough for me to love God, if my neighbor doesn’t love Him.”

So if sharing the Good News of Jesus
Christ, and purposefully helping others to transition from trusting Christians,
to being open, to learning more, to being outright curious about Jesus, to
seeking him so as to eventually become his disciple, who can lead others
through the same predictable stages of conversion is indispensable to following
Jesus (Mt 28:19, Mk 16:15, 1 Cor 9:16), how do you actually do so while (or
better yet—because of) simultaneously being a good husband/father or
wife/mother? While it is awesome to have
convert (or revert), to the faith as a college student living in bachelor/bachelorette
mode and bring your roommate to bible studies/Mass/Adoration/etc., it is not at
all the same as being in the thick of sleep-interrupted, diaper-changing,
dinner-with-toddler(s)-on-your-lap stage of life and spiritually accompanying (c.f.
Evangelii gaudium 169-173) a peer or
someone from a different stage of life in your own vocation or a different
vocation altogether.

So how
does one bring the orbits together of forming disciples and living marriage
well?

Here is a
list of items to get the conversation started, please share yours too:

·Marry someone decidedly in love with Jesus. Aristotle
and Fr. Barron recommend it! This
way when your baptism, confirmation, marriage and Eucharistic graces kick in,
then you can share the love and joy of the Gospel to the fullest.

oTithing 10% of your gross income versus net. This
won’t be a source of conflict, it’ll be a source of trusting in God’s
providence together which will lead to overall marital joy even in the midst of
less cash flow!

·Don’t allow people to view your children as a
burden preventing you from participating in the life of the community or your
parish.

oIf you sense that the RCIA team leader does not
want to impose on your weeknight routine by having you share your testimony
with the candidates and catechumens, say explicitly and perhaps repeatedly, “it
would be a pleasure and honor to share my faith story with others. My spouse will support me in this by tucking
the kids into bed that night.”

·Don’t fall for the mental trap that “we’ll have
more time later . . .”

oThere’s no guarantee that tomorrow will be given
to us; each of our ends will always be surprising to us (Mt 24:36, 42-44). Show your children today what it looks like
to be a gracious host to God in our neighbors (Heb 13:2) so that when they are
older it will be a natural manifestation of their Christian life.

·Strike a balance with your time in favor of Jesus
and Christian community.

oWhat if you only watched TV one night a week for
30 min? Or
what if you didn’t watch TV at all?
What if you visited Jesus in the tabernacle or exposition of the
Eucharist once a week? What if you
stopped by an elderly and lonely neighbor’s house each time you were out for a
walk? What if your kids only did one
sport per year and you joined teams that your fellow parishioners were on too
so that while on the sidelines and during practices you could share your faith
journey and struggles with your peers?
What if you read the lives of the saints with your kids each night? Or said “goodnight” to their patron saint’s
icon on their bedroom wall?

·What if you prayed obscure Catholic prayers and
invited others to learn them with you?

oYou could pray Angelus at noon with coworkers or
to St. Michael the Archangel after Mass with your spouse, kids and pew neighbor,
or the Memorare at the start of car journeys, or the Glory Be upon hearing
emergency vehicle’s sirens wherever you may be, or even simply make the Sign of
the Cross before grace at meals at restaurants.

Friday, June 12, 2015

Within the last six weeks or so, I have attended a diaconate ordination, a priestly ordination, a Mass of Thanksgiving for a newly ordained priest, a wedding, and a Mass for the tenth anniversary of priesthood. For several of these Masses, I noticed something while standing in the back with our squirmy, chatty 16-month-old: I wasn’t alone.

I’m not sure at which event the back of church was more populated. At the ordinations in the cathedral, babies were walked back and forth on the marble tile. The wedding Mass had a virtual second world in the back of the large church, where babies were nursed in back pews and introduced to every statue. And at the Mass of Thanksgiving, the back carpet was covered with crawlers and climbers, intrigued by the baptismal font.

Many of us, perhaps, have heard that the vocation to marriage and the vocation to celibacy are complementary, but it can be easy to forget that we are not set in opposition or relegated to our own corner of the ecclesial room (as it were).

As I looked around the back of the various churches, I saw more than just mothers, fathers and babies. I saw the communities from which these new vocations were born. Attending the diaconate ordination were members of a young adult group that one of the young men, a convert, had attended. Likely, his discernment of the seminary was occurring at the same time as the dating and engagement of many couples in the group. The newly ordained priest was surrounded by couples, who, a decade earlier, were at the same college, asking where God might be calling. And even the newly married couple were surrounded by deacons and priests as they professed their vows to one another.

No vocation is born in isolation.We seek our specific path in the call to holiness along with so many other saints-in-the-making.Some are called to marriage, others are called to be priests or religious, but each person is called to holiness and to eternal communion with God.

Once we have begun living our state in life, said our vows and commenced the day-to-day actions, we live out our vocation, not in isolation, but in the community of others, both married and celibate. The married couples reveal something of the exclusivity and totality with which God loves every human person. Those who have embraced celibacy for the Kingdom reveal something of the abundance of God’s love and the promise of eternal communion with Him in heaven.

There isn’t a competition to see who can rack up more “holiness points” or who has chosen a more difficult path. The cloistered nun might pray a Holy Hour for her friend with a family, and her friend might offer up middle-of-the-night diaper changes. The prayers, the sacrifices, the witness are mutually given and received by those within both states of life.

It was a matter brought home to me in a very real way as I watched young mothers and fathers pacing, patting, and swaying while a friend (or friends) were promising vows of obedience and celibacy. The parents and the priests (and everyone else filling the pews, of course) are called to a vocation to love, to serve and to draw closer to the God who created us.

Saturday, May 30, 2015

My
proposal to my fiancée did not go how I planned it. I'm sure plenty of
guys can say the same in today's day and age where proposals are often choreographed with
more extras than a Cecil B. DeMille epic. There is pressure to infuse as much
meaning as possible into the moment. In my case, I proposed, as planned, in
front of the Blessed Sacrament on St. John Paul II’s first feast day. Instead
of being private, however, it ended up being in front of fifteen other random
strangers in the chapel – my fiancée's personal nightmare.

As our
engagement proceeded, I was surprised by the feeling of normality. I had those
periodic “Woah, I'm getting married” moments, but in general, the monumental life change I was
preparing for seemed very much matter-of-fact. “Of course I'm marrying Maureen,
it would be weird to think otherwise.” Now for someone who never ceases to seek
the profound in anything less than the weather, I was alarmed at what I
was feeling about my own betrothal. This should be a time of being overwhelmed
at the depth of what I was entering into with this woman I loved and instead I
felt very matter-of-fact about it all. Something had to be wrong with me, my
maturity, the engagement, something.

As I reflected
and prayed about all of this, two things occurred to me. It was entirely
appropriate for me to feel this way, but it also signaled that I needed to
grow. I thought of two concepts that St. John Paul II wrote in his Theology
of the Body. The first was the sacramentality of the body and the
second was the body as a task.

Author's picture.

A
sacrament, as we all remember from our second grade religious education
classes, is “an outward sign, instituted by Christ to give us grace.”
Sacraments are those visible things that not only point to invisible things,
but also really make those invisible realities present or efficacious. For
example, when someone is baptized, the symbol in the rite is one of being
washed. Yet, the physical pouring of or immersion into the water, is not merely
a sign of what God is doing, the physical action actually brings about
the spiritual action. Sacraments efficaciously make present the very things
they signify.

John
Paul takes this truth and then applies it to the body. Man and Woman are made
in God's Image and Likeness. God, who is a Trinity of Persons, exists as a
constant and complete gift of self. Being made in his Image as male and female,
this gift-reality is written precisely into our bodies in our relation to one
another.

Man,
in fact, by means of his corporality, his masculinity and femininity, becomes a
visible sign of the economy of truth and love, which has its source in God
himself and which was revealed already in the mystery of creation. Against this
vast background we understand fully the words that constitute the sacrament of
marriage, present in Genesis 2:24: "A man leaves his father and his mother
and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh." (19, 5)

So, in a
certain sense, there is a sort of “naturalness” to the idea of getting married.
There is a certain matter-of-factness that one should expect with this because
God created us to be a gift to this other. It is in our very nature to be gift,
just as it is in our nature to eat, sleep, exercise, etc. So, there should be a
certain “of course” quality to my betrothal.

And
yet, we know almost by instinct, that there is something wrong with staying
simply in the realm of the “of course.” We know that marriage is on a higher
plane, even if marrying her seems as natural as breathing to me. It is, but we
also need our growth from the sacrament of marriage itself to come close to
grasping marriage's reality. John Paul simultaneously affirms that man already
has written into him this reality of gift, and that the body is also a task for
men and women. Yes, my body, as it was the moment I was born, was given to me
as a sign of my interior reality to be a gift to another, however, my body is
also an assignment. I must grow into the reality that I am:

The
Creator has assigned as a task to man his body, his masculinity and femininity;
and that in masculinity and femininity he, in a way, assigned to him as a task
his humanity, the dignity of the person, and also the clear sign of the
interpersonal communion in which man fulfills himself through the authentic
gift of himself. Setting before man the requirements conforming to the tasks
entrusted to him, at the same time the Creator points out to man, male and
female, the ways that lead to assuming and discharging them. (59, 2)

My task
is to, in a sense, become who I am. I'm not there yet. There is a depth written
into my creation as a man to more fully become a gift and to more fully enter
into this communion of persons with my beloved who also has a depth written
into her creation and must more fully become a gift to me. The body reveals to
me that this is who I am, but it also educates and leads me to a fuller depth
of this mystery. A maturation needs to take place:

In its masculinity or femininity
the body is given as a task to the human spirit. By means of an adequate
maturity of the spirit it too becomes a sign of the person, which the person is
conscious of, and authentic "matter" in the communion of persons. In
other words, through his spiritual maturity, man discovers the nuptial
meaning proper to the body. (59, 4 emphasis mine)

And
so, while it is the most natural of things for me to enter into marriage with my
fiancée, the reality of what we are doing goes to the very heart of what it
means to be made in the image and likeness of God. By entering into this
matrimonial covenant, we continue this “pedagogy of the body” by the revelation
of the communion of persons not only to ourselves but to the rest of the world.
Our wedding and our married life together is a sacrament of this reality of who
and what we are created to be, but also stands as our task to more fully become
that reality.

My plans to infuse meaning into
my proposal to Maureen didn't work and my time of betrothal has been less a
matter of being overwhelmed by the gravity of it all and more an ordinary day to
day affair. From what I know of family life, that's probably an experience most
of us have. We go to work, make the meals, do laundry, mow the lawn, but
written into each of these very normal mundane affairs is this reality that
while doing them, we are being drawn to consider this life as a gift. That
married life, in the normal day to day, is a task given to us to live out more
completely the reality that in these moments of picking the kids up from school
and untangling the Christmas lights I am living for another - and I'm receiving from another. And just
like my proposal, the truth of this reality is already there, it doesn't need a
grand scheme to infuse it with meaning. This gift-quality of life isn't just part
of life, it is life. I am nothing else but gift, and only in pursuing
this as task, can I truly become who I am.

Thursday, May 28, 2015

"Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it and make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it." - St. John Paul II (Redemptor Hominis no. 10)

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We are alumni of the John Paul II Institute in Washington, DC. For those searching for answers to questions about marriage and the family, this site will serve as a place to read and reflect, continually growing in gratitude for the gift of the family.